Chiefs not considering benching Alex Smith for Patrick Mahomes this season

[thegame214]

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/c...s-this-season/


Per Jason La Canfora


Despite their recent struggles on offense, the Chiefs are not inclined to make any switch at quarterback, team sources said, though the staff does remain very bullish on first-round pick Patrick Mahomes and his ability to take over as soon as next season. Mahomes continues to impress teammates and coaches with his efforts in practice and how he conducts himself in meetings and around the facility, and there is a strong sense that he could be a franchise quarterback sooner rather than later.

Even with their recent falloff in the passing game and running game, and with Mahomes' athleticism and huge arm, there is no movement to move on from veteran Alex Smith now and the only way he would lose his job would be to injury, sources said. Smith has tailed off from what was an MVP-like first half, with the Chiefs storming to a 5-0 record and being talked about as perhaps the best team in football.

They've gone into a 1-4 swoon since then and face a critical AFC game with the Bills this weekend, with the Chargers suddenly surging in the AFC West and the Raiders still capable of making a run, too. Smith has failed to maintain the big plays downfield that helped the team get off to such a torrid start -- the dink-and-dunk nature of the offense under him was part of the allure of Mahomes in the draft, as his gunslinger approach is the opposite of that -- and rookie running back Kareem Hunt has been bottled up as well.

Smith is coming off his worst game of the season in a loss to the lowly Giants coming out of the bye. He threw multiple interceptions, which is out of character for him. Coach Andy Reid was somewhat critical of his play after that, but Smith continues to get the bulk of starting reps and is entrusted with getting this team to the postseason.

However, numerous other GMs anticipate the Chiefs shopping Smith, who has one year left on his contract, in the offseason. He is signed to a team-friendly deal that is easy to deal, he would have significant value to any contending team that may want to upgrade at quarterback (Jacksonville; Arizona or Denver if they opt not to rebuild) and he is a proven, steady hand who teammates love and who protects the football (almost to a fault). The Chiefs seem poised to turn the offense over to Mahomes and it would be anything but a surprise should Smith leave Kansas City via trade after arriving there from a swap with the 49ers upon Reid's hiring.

[Stryker]

This article says it all to me....

The Chiefs Have Been Figured Out

When a good team loses, people wonder aloud if there’s now a blueprint for how to beat them. Usually it’s overblown, if not outright nonsensical. But every once in a while, it’s legitimate. Like right now, and the blueprint to beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

On October 15, the Chiefs took the field against Pittsburgh with a 5-0 record. They had been averaging an NFL-best 32.8 points a game, and Alex Smith was deemed an early MVP candidate. That day, however, the Steelers beat the Chiefs 19-13. Alex Smith had 246 yards thanks to some fluky, late-in-the-down big plays, but overall Kansas City’s offense had been stymied. And it has remained stymied. Since the Steelers’ plane touched down in K.C., the Chiefs are 1-5. They’re averaging 18 points per game during that stretch, including their 10-point performance in defeat at home against a reeling Bills team on Sunday.

So what blueprint did the Steelers set? A passive one. Instead of attacking Smith and Co., they stayed back in soft zone coverage. They kept everything in front of them and rallied to the ball. It was a simple, but brilliant, approach.

The gadgets and gimmicks that comprise Andy Reid’s offense, the tools they had used to light up the Patriots in Foxboro on opening night, suddenly stopped working. The misdirection that had given opponents fits, with ploys like speedy Tyreek Hill racing one way and the ball optioning back another, became null. If defenders don’t match up and follow offensive players, then those gadgets and misdirections are less effective. Instead of following Hill (or any Chiefs player) and becoming out-leveraged pawns against Reid’s designs, defenders now guard an area of the field, forcing Reid to play to them.

Against the Chiefs, it’s especially important that edge defenders play with zone integrity. This includes cornerbacks underneath. Those are the men who handle Hill on the perimeter and force Smith to read a suddenly shrunken field inside.

So yes, there’s a blueprint. How do the Chiefs respond? Some are calling for first-round rookie quarterback Patrick Mahomes to take over. But the only reason Reid would bench Smith is if the head coach truly believed that those gadgets and misdirection concepts can never work again. Because if Reid went with the more talented but inexperienced Mahomes, he’d have to throw out much of those concepts, along with many of his multi-progression designs. At Texas Tech, Mahomes played in a spread offense, which, notably, he ran with very little discipline. Raw sandlot playmaking prowess works in college, but it does not transfer to the NFL—not as a quarterback’s foundation, anyway. It will take at least an offseason (and probably more) for Mahomes to develop the awareness and discipline to run a full-fledged NFL offense, particularly one as comprehensive as Reid’s.

What the Chiefs must do in the here and now is punish defenses for playing zone. You do that by going for big plays. Re-establishing a sustainable ground and screen game with rookie running back Kareem Hunt is important, sure, but the threat of steady, sustained drives is not what worries defensive coordinators—especially coordinators who are playing zone. Big plays worry them. And it’s that worry that will drag defensive play-callers away from soft zones, giving Kansas City’s foundational misdirection and gadgetry a chance to start working again.

You beat zones by attacking them vertically. Instead of aligning Hill and all-world tight end Travis Kelce all over the formation and finding creative ways to get them the ball, align those two together on the same side and run them downfield against the same zone defender. In football parlance, that’s called sending “two through a zone.” It forces zone defenders to make either-or decisions.

Most of this occurs near the seams and middle of the field, where you’re facing safeties and linebackers. In that scenario, even when the defender is right his result can still be wrong, given that few safeties and linebackers can match up with Kelce, and none can match up with Hill. One or two big plays like this and the Chiefs can get a defense adjusting (or even abandoning) its zone coverages.

For Kansas City, the tricky part with this approach is that you bump into some of Smith’s limitations. A quarterback must throw with velocity and anticipation when attacking zone coverage downfield. That has never been Smith’s game. There was a play in the first half of the Buffalo loss that made the rounds on Twitter. Kelce got open on a deep “over” route, running diagonally across the field. Smith didn’t target him. Instead, he threw underneath the instant the pocket started to crumble. To hit Kelce, Smith would have had to climb up in that crumbling pocket and throw from an unideal platform. That takes arm strength that Smith doesn’t have. When the action gets messy around Smith, his instinct has always been to tuck the ball and look for space. That throw to Kelce would have also required some anticipation, which Smith—smart as he is—rarely throws with. Generally Smith must see an open receiver before turning it loose.

This probably doesn’t sound like a great case for keeping Mahomes on the bench and Smith on the field, but remember: With strong pass protection, Smith has been more than serviceable for Kansas City in recent years, including on downfield zone-beating designs. (For example, ask the Texans how fun it is to play Cover 4 against Smith.) And if the zone-beating designs are really sharp—which, with Reid’s knack for forecasting coverages, they often are—then Smith can get your offense functioning on-schedule snap after snap. You almost certainly would not get that with a 22-year-old Mahomes.

But again, Smith needs space for this to work. A lot rides on Kansas City’s O-line, which has been up and down. The misdirection and gadgetry naturally slowed defenses early in the year, aiding that line. But since defenses have started playing straight zone, their pass rushes have been more decisive and destructive. The Chiefs face five dangerous pass rushing teams to finish out the schedule:

• The Jets, who have no edge rushers but can collapse your pocket inside
• The Raiders, who have grossly underachieved in their four-man rush but still have Khalil Mack and Bruce Irvin
• The Chargers, who have the league’s best edge-rushing tandem in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram
• The Dolphins and all of the stunts and twists they do with their strong defensive tackles and limber ends
• And the Broncos, who build around the game’s best defensive player, Von Miller.

It’s imperative Kansas City’s O-line rise to these challenges and give its veteran quarterback the space he needs. If it doesn’t, then a conversation about Mahomes must commence earlier than they would like.

https://sports.yahoo.com/chiefs-figured-082052935.html

[RunKC]

So we're going back to the same stadium that Alex couldn't play in 2 weeks ago with the same weather that forced ducks into the ground.
Weather is projected to be cloudy, below 50 with wind.

This will not end well.

[Reerun_KC]

Originally Posted by RunKC

So we're going back to the same stadium that Alex couldn't play in 2 weeks ago with the same weather that forced ducks into the ground.
Weather is projected to be cloudy, below 50 with wind.

This will not end well.

It should be an awesome sight of biffness

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

That's because you don't understand what he's talking about.

Getting familiarized with the offense isn't about memorizing plays, it's about learning the terminology and the concepts of the offense. Reid has shown that he will mold the offense to the quarterback. That's why the offense he used with McNabb had far more of a vertical element, and the one he used with Smith was a horizontal one.

Reid is always going to use West Coast terminology and verbiage in his offense, but elements of the offense, including route combinations, will be molded to fit Mahomes once he is the starter, but that alteration is not going to reerun his growth, nor will it require any sort of a learning curve.

For example, this first 52 page of this 67 page PDF is about terminology of the WCO:

http://www.playbookexchange.net/play...-WestCoast.pdf


This, roughly, is the kind of stuff he is learning this year.

Terminology and learning a phonebook of plays is one thing.

Having the receivers and the QB know how to change a route based on what they read from the defense and having all parties on the same page once the ball is snapped is an entirely different thing.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

To be fair, if we follow your logic, CP should be filled with "Hunt sucks" threads. He's the one who hired Pioli, Dorsey, Reid, et. al. If we blame Reid for Smith then we have to blame Hunt for Reid.

Hunt does suck.

[ARROW2]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Terminology and learning a phonebook of plays is one thing.

Having the receivers and Smith know how to change a route based on what they read from the defense and having all parties on the same page once the ball is snapped is an entirely different thing.

Smiff's "knowledge" of the offense means nothing when he won't THROW THE MOTHER****ER!!!

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by tooge

Hunt does suck.

Wrong. Hunt up the middle every ****ing first down of a series is what sucks.

[wazu]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

To be fair, if we follow your logic, CP should be filled with "Hunt sucks" threads. He's the one who hired Pioli, Dorsey, Reid, et. al. If we blame Reid for Smith then we have to blame Hunt for Reid.

Eventually you do get there. I’m not on board with firing Reid, yet, though. Regardless of what happens this year, I want to see next year with Reid and Mahomes.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by wazu

Eventually you do get there. I’m not on board with firing Reid, yet, though. Regardless of what happens this year, I want to see next year with Reid and Mahomes.

I agree. That's not a ringing endorsement for Reid. I was never gung ho about him to begin with. But I think he and mahomes will be a great match.

[Hammock Parties]

This is about money.

NFL teams keep all non-ticket revenue from playoff games.

That can be as high as 2 million dollars (if you're the Patriots).

Additionally, NFL teams DON'T pay the players during the postseason. The league pays the players.

Home playoff game = sweet sweet cash = keep trotting out $mith until we're no longer leading the division

[KCrockaholic]

So we're literally stuck having to root for the Chargers or Raiders to take 1st place before ignorant Andy will make the switch. What a stupid season this has become.

[carcosa]

Originally Posted by ptlyon

Wrong. Hunt up the middle every ****ing first down of a series is what sucks.

The team owner definitely shouldn't be running the ball,that's true

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by KCrockaholic

So we're literally stuck having to root for the Chargers or Raiders to take 1st place before ignorant Andy will make the switch. What a stupid season this has become.

The Jets game is going to be the key game. If Smith shits the bed and we lose....then the pressure could force Andy to make the switch. We'd be tied with the Chargers (when they beat the Browns). I don't see Smith beating the Raiders the next week and the Chargers get the Redskins.

[bigjosh]

Originally Posted by ptlyon

Wrong. Hunt up the middle every ****ing first down of a series is what sucks.

He was talking about clark.

[bigjosh]

Originally Posted by Pestilence

The Jets game is going to be the key game. If Smith shits the bed and we lose....then the pressure could force Andy to make the switch. We'd be tied with the Chargers (when they beat the Browns). I don't see Smith beating the Raiders the next week and the Chargers get the Redskins.

I am not getting my hopes up for a change.

It is literally the only reason I am still watching this shit team, so that I dont miss Mahomes first NFL snaps. I think it is a lost cause this year. Reid is too much of a pussy to make the change.